Neither Columbus police nor Mississippi Child Protective Services plan to press charges against two adults who left a 6-year-old child unattended Monday at a Columbus hotel.
CPS, however, has temporarily placed the child in his grandmother’s custody, Columbus Police Department Assistant Fred Shelton told The Dispatch this morning.
Xzavier Westbrook’s mother reported her son missing at about 2:30 p.m. after she returned from work to the room where she is staying at the Budget Inn on Highway 182 across from Propst Park.
At about 5 p.m., just as authorities had initiated an endangered child alert with the Department of Public Safety and had begun searching the area around Stokes-Beard Elementary, city public information officer Joe Dillon said the mother contacted the child’s aunt, who had picked him up at the hotel and was keeping him safely in Monroe County.
Shelton said the mother went to work at 5:30 a.m. Monday, leaving the child in her boyfriend’s care. The boyfriend, though, went to work at 7 a.m. and left the child unattended.
At some point, Shelton said, the aunt discovered the child was alone and came to get him.
“(The boyfriend) at first said he had gone to the store for a few minutes and came back,” Shelton said. “That turned out not to be true. … Technically, we could charge (the mother and boyfriend) with child neglect, but since (CPS) is not going to charge them, we aren’t either.”
CPS questioned both the mother and her boyfriend after the child was recovered. Shelton said CPS is giving the mother 30 days to “get her life together” before considering returning the child to her custody.
“Parents need to be checking on their kids and making sure they are safe,” he said.
Since no one was charged, Shelton would not release the names of the mother or her boyfriend to The Dispatch.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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